The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), otherwise known as drones, is a growing market and their use for multiple purposes is expected to grow exponentially within the next few years. UAVs can be used for any number of purposes. UAVs can fly over parts of land to give aerial views of land for planning purposes. One particularly beneficial use of drones is the placement and testing of environmental sensors.
Currently, autonomous UAVs are given a mission directive. The mission directive may be any set of instructions to be fully executed by the UAV. As one example, an autonomous UAV may be given a flight path and a set of tasks to perform while flying on the flight path. The tasks may be any type of task, such as photographing a specific landscape or delivering a package. The UAV executes the mission directive by flying along the flight path and by executing all assigned tasks during flight. The standard flight path for the UAV is designed such that the origination point and the destination point are the same place.
The current state of the art is limited though. In order to gather data at a specific location under the current state of the art, a UAV specially and specifically equipped with the right sensors would need to make multiple passes along a given path, or hover at a given location until its energy runs out. Weather conditions can also limit the ability to fly UAVs at certain times, adding an additional challenge. Therefore, there is no simple, cost effective, and reliable way to use UAVs to gather data for a longer term or to gather continuous data.
In the current state of the art there is an assumption that a mission directive to gather data is to be executed by a single specially and specifically equipped UAV. Therefore, if there are any problems or issues that develop with that UAV when it is executing its mission directive, the entire mission directive is compromised or delayed. What is needed is a system whereby a mission directive to gather data by various sensors can be allocated to the appropriate UAV(s) such that a partial set of data gathering tasks in a mission are completed by an optimal set of UAVs. Furthermore, in this system of multiple UAVs, what is needed is a method of assigning an initial mission directive to an appropriately chosen UAV.
In addition, the placement of sensors in the environment is a difficult task. Sensors can be used for any number of reasons, such as sampling and measuring air composition, measuring the structural integrity of man-made structures, collecting visual data for variety of uses such as assessing road traffic data, or detecting wild animal populations in the environment. The placement of these sensors is traditionally performed in person. This method presents a limitation though in that it is desirable to place sensors in remote locations which may be impractical or impossible to reach manually. Therefore it is desirable to have the ability to place and test sensors through the use of automated drones. In addition, the placement of sensors by drones is limited in that the planning and execution of the placement of the sensor is difficult, particularly when planning the placement of multiple sensors. What is needed is a simplified method and system for the placement, management, and testing of environmental sensors with automated drones.